Features writer Onuoha Emeaba examines the crisis rocking some councils in Abia State and posit that the genesis of such conflict could be traced to bid by the respective leadership of such councils to satisfy those who sponsored them into office.
Since the return of democracy in 1999 many local government council of Abia State have been enmeshed in crisis. The council activities seem to have been bogged down as everything that could be wrong, have gone wrong. The staff are not being paid while the executive and the legislatures are at each other throat.
The citizens too are complaining of lack of democracy dividends. Their grouse is that the politicians who control the resources at the grassroots are only busy siphoning public money their private pockets.
In the manner of vulture preying on the carcass, these politicians at the local government area are said to be struggling over the loots of the council. To worsen it they are pointing accusing fingers at each other, and washing their dirty linens in the law of courts.
While the political quagmire permeates through all the local government in the state, observers hold the view that the crisis is prevalent in areas that generate high revenue. That is probably why Aba North which is considered as the richest Local Government Area with high concentration of industries and Ariria market the biggest market east of the Niger is now crisis ridden.
Unfortunately the Aba North which generates more revenue than other councils cannot pay staff for more than five months. Even the councilors insinuated that the treasury is rendered so porous that it cannot finance even a contract that would take the least amount of money.
The councilors have already indicted the council chairman chief Eme Abali Mba for rendering the council financially useless. As a first step the councilors moved to impeach the chairman after serving 14 days of the allegation leveled against him. But instead of adhering to the legislative order of the council, Chief Mba applied for an enforcement of his fundamental right in a suit no A/M167/2001, in the high court of Abia State, holden at Aba.
Despite the fact that the court presided by Justice T. Akomas granted leave to the applicant of the enforcement of his fundamental right, the councilor who felt that the chairman had a lots of skeleton in his cupboard vowed never to relent in exposing the dirty deals of the chairman.
The conflit lingered until the Abia State government set up a panel through the hourable judge of state to investigate the allegations containing in the notice of allegations of gross misconduct against the executive chairman.
After hearing the submission by cousels chairman, Chief Mba and the councilors, and visiting some projects the chairman claimed to have done the panel stated that the various projects shown to them were unsatisfactory. In what seemed a contradiction of their report, the panel exonerated the chairman from the alleged gross misconduct, but agreed that the things quoted by the chairman for certain projects were grossly inadequate for such amount of money.
The panel did not however, indict the chairman personally but the entire politicians for failing in their duties. “it is however the view of the panel that when the legislative council applies all it s power under the local government law, project and the finances of the local government will be better managed and monitor so that individual officers responsible for any specific misconduct could be isolated and dealt with”, the panel concluded in their report.
Regrettably, the impeachment crisis seem to have subsided as the panel granted reprieve to the chairman, but the council had already been shattered by the crisis. The councilor and the executive chairman of Aba North have thous wasted every available kobo in the council of their individual struggle for political supremacy to the detrimate of the people. This way many projects have been left undone and staff salaries, including that of the councilors are yet to be unpaid. The councils treasury is just empty.
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